WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yeah, but never because I'm overeating; it's because I eat eight bags of chips in one sitting, and then nothing for a day or two. I learned that my body thought it was starving, so it would hold on to fat.

KATIE COURIC: Are you still on the plan?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yeah. I do three shakes a day. And I have my crab, sushi or whatever, including chips. I just don't need eight bags. And I make sure I'm pooping, because that, apparently, is a huge deal. I was never a pooper, either.

KATIE COURIC: I read that you picked the name "Whoopi" because you had a lot of gas. [Whoopi was born Caryn Elaine Johnson.]

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I worked in a theater in San Diego with the smallest dressing rooms. I was trying to change clothes, and you don't have time to be polite. People would say, "You're like a whoopee cushion!"

KATIE COURIC: [Laughs.] Let's talk about The View. Of the cast, I think you're the most chill. Is that accurate?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I'm pretty chill, because life's too short to be anything but. On The View, I decided that no matter what, I wasn't going to lose it. I grew up in a house where we had spirited discussions, even heated, but at the end of the day, you're still family.

KATIE COURIC: Do any of your cohosts drive you crazy?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: [Laughs.] Nooo.

KATIE COURIC: If you held hands and sang "Kumbaya," it'd be pretty dull. It's interesting, because you and Elisabeth [Hasselbeck] are diametrically opposed in your points of view.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Only politically. I will tell you this about Elisabeth: This movie The Princess and the…Frog came out…

KATIE COURIC: The Disney movie with an African American princess.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: …They gave us dolls. [Elisabeth] gave one to her daughter, and she would go everywhere with it. Elisabeth came in one day and said, "Something weird happened. We're walking down the street, my daughter and I, and people are looking at her. I'm thinking, Why are they looking at her? Because she has a black doll!" I said, "Were you sure?" She said, "No, but my gut told me, and it really irritated me." She was saying, "I get a piece of what you've talked about"—that no, you don't want to think something might be racist, but it might be, because your gut is telling you it is. That was huge, because she didn't have to tell me.

KATIE COURIC: Do you think race relations have improved with the election of Barack Obama?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I thought they were. Then I started to hear the little asides pundits were making, and I thought, You know I can hear you, right?… It feels like you don't like the fact that he's there because he is black. And you won't say it because you know it's wrong. But that's what it feels like.

KATIE COURIC: I think the other side of it might be that true equality is when you can be critical and it's not based on race.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yes, when we get it I think we'll recognize it.

KATIE COURIC: What have you learned that might be valuable for other people to hear?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: You have to make a decision. Take all the advice you want, but at the end of the day, it's your responsibility.

KATIE COURIC: What about taking chances?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: If you can handle the repercussions. You want to be an individual; can you handle it? Because it's lonesome. That means not running with the pack. The pack don't want you when you're an individual. Pack wants you to be the pack. The phrase "to thine own self be true": It's real. But it's hard.

KATIE COURIC: Now I have questions from Glamour readers. Tiffany from Houston asks, "What do you wish you knew in your twenties that you know now?"

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: That I was going to be all right in my fifties. And that it was not that different from my twenties.

KATIE COURIC: Melissa from Brooklyn asks, "When did you decide that you didn't care about the Hollywood image and become comfortable with your style?"

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Day one. I always wore sneakers when I wanted to. It was always about being comfortable and being myself.

KATIE COURIC: That takes self-confidence.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I have a lot.

KATIE COURIC: Finally, from Lynne in Atlanta, "Who would you want to play you in a movie about your life?" This is when you say, "Halle Berry, baby!"

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I'd love Gabby Sidibe [of the film Precious] to do it, because that's a girl with a spirit. And in order to play Whoopi Goldberg, you'd have to have a spirit.

KATIE COURIC: When in your career have you had the most fun?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Ninety-eight percent of the time.

KATIE COURIC: Almost all the time?

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: If I said it was daily, I'd be lying, but every three days, I kiss the hem of His or Her garment: Thank you, God, because I am lucky. Also let's face it, it turns out I'm black. And I'm having a career quite different from lots of people, so I feel doubly lucky.